Motivated by the current (2011) political climate in Wisconsin it seems reasonable to devote some time and effort to comment on issues and some of the hyperbole. So we in the public should do what we can to help focus "journalists" on delineating real facts versus spin. If you accept the spin you do not understand the policy implications.

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Out-of-sight leads to "out-of-mind" irony! How has this come to be? Campaign money in their pocket and a tilted WI Legislature dominated by the GOP clothed in "all regulation (hence government) is bad" - and bad for business. As a significant agricultural state more analogies seem appropriate ... "We have had the GOP guarding the chicken coop" far too long.

I have an engineering friend who deals with zoning and regulation all the time. He is glad to have some government "rules" or he would be building high rises without sprinkler systems - because the customer would want it that way in order to compete with other builders.

These "literal downstream consequences" are so easy to overlook until the stream becomes muddy or the trout disappear.

Perhaps even more ironic ... is the "groundwater" treated as a "free good" ... I only have to pay for the high-capacity well and electricity to operate it ... the water is free even it comes unwillingly from my neighbor. Remember water flows downhill even groundwater ... and campaign money is perhaps more important than the "public good".

Assembly Lawmakers Debate High Capacity Wells "These are not our resources to give," says Representative Chris Taylor while speaking on the Assembly floor on the subject of high capacity wells. "They are our resources to protect for the people of our state and for their children and for their children." On May 2, 2017, author of the bill, Gary Tauchen, explains, "We need to recognize, too, that manufacturing and agriculture are the big job drivers in the state of Wisconsin."

Since October, Wisconsin has approved requests from businesses for a billion gallons per month in new groundwater withdrawals from locations where the state’s own experts warned that higher pumping levels could be expected to harm vulnerable lakes, streams and drinking water supplies.

The increase was added by revising dozens of permits for high-capacity wells after regulations were relaxed in June at the urging of business groups and Republicans who control state government.

IN 2014, TRACES of an unusual survey, connected to Facebook, began appearing on internet message boards. The boards were frequented by remote freelance workers who bid on “human intelligence tasks” in an online marketplace, called Mechanical Turk, controlled by Amazon. The “turkers,” as they’re known, tend to perform work that is rote and repetitive, like flagging pornographic images or digging through search engine results for email addresses. Most jobs pay between 1 and 15 cents. “Turking makes us our rent money and helps pay off debt,” one turker told The Intercept. Another turker has called the work “voluntary slave labor.”

The task posted by “Global Science Research” appeared ordinary, at least on the surface. The company offered turkers $1 or $2 to complete an online survey. But there were a couple of additional requirements as well. First, Global Science Research was only interested in American turkers. Second, the turkers had to download a Facebook app before they could collect payment. Global Science Research said the app would “download some information about you and your network … basic demographics and likes of categories, places, famous people, etc. from you and your friends.”

“Our terms of service clearly prohibit misuse,” said a spokesperson for Amazon Web Services, by email. “When we learned of this activity back in 2015, we suspended the requester for violating our terms of service.”